A Marine Corps 1st: Women take infantry courseAllowing the women to volunteer for the course is part of an “experiment” to determine how they perform in the rigorous regimen of physical and psychological stress that Marine infantry officer candidates are put through.

Pentagon shuts MRAP production lineThrough September this year, a total of 27,740 MRAPs rolled off the assembly lines of seven manufacturers, including BAE Systems, Oshkosh Defense and Navistar, and 12,726 remain in theater in Afghanistan, according to Defense Department figures. About 870 have been sold to foreign militaries and another 700 are on order for allies.

I agree with a lot of what you write. But I wouldn’t lay the blame on O. This country’s future has been ‘baked in the cake’ long before he ever got involved in politics. I would say LBJ is much more responsible. Others might be even go as far back as FDR to lay the blame.

“China Dismisses Reports About Second Aircraft Carrier”
Sure, we can believe what Beijing says about their long-term naval interests! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play a few games of Blackjack in the floating casino they built out of the Varyag…

“Questions raised over Marine Personnel Carrier’s future”
The best candidate under consideration is unquestionably the AMV-based Havoc, but the best for the job would be a full-track vehicle (e.g., the PAL AFV, ARISGATOR, MTVL, BMP-3, etc.) — why these aren’t considered for a vehicle role that entails driving up a wet, sandy slopes (such as, for example, a *beach*) defies reason.

“Public High School Math Teacher Allegedly Tells Student to Leave Class for Wearing Pro-Romney T-Shirt”
It’s funny that she would say it isn’t allowable to make such a statement on grounds that it’s similar to the Ku Klux Klan, because the Supreme Court already upheld long ago that even *they* have a right to free speech. Moreover, it’s also blatantly illegal for a US-government-run school (i.e., a “public” school) to in any way regulate speech, including wearing tee shirts promoting a presidential candidate.

“Wary of Israel, Iran Is Said to Err in Strikes”
If they used Sparrow or Phoenix missiles, it’s no big surprise. The Sparrow has a demonstrated kill probability of only 0.05% The Phoenix did even worse. At the Gulf of Sidra, 2 were launched at Ligyan Mig-23s — both fell into the sea after flying 50 miles (the official range is 100 miles). 2 more were fired at an Iraqi Mig-25 on January 5th 1999 — both flamed-out and fell out of the sky. One last Phoenix was fired at an Iraqi Mig-23 on September 9th 1999 — it *also* flamed-out and fell out of the sky. That’s the entire confirmed combat record of the Phoenix.

“4 missile cruisers to remain in service”
That’s nice and all, but where’s the replacement class of Cruisers? It’s been more than 30 years since the first Tico was commissioned, after all. And maybe this time we can build an *actual* Cruiser, instead of pretending that a Destroyer is a Cruiser (compare the stats of the Ticos to the Bruke class Destroyers — they’re so similar, that the different designations are illusory, almost to be point of being DElusory).

“Pentagon shuts MRAP production line”
It’s at least 5 years too late to matter. There was never any point in them, with all the M115 Gavin APCs we had in storage (over 6000).